Gun Bans are the Answer to a Global Pandemic?

In good times and bad, when life is great or the world has gone mad, you can always count on the usual suspects to scream for more “gun control.”

Unfortunately, standard practice for groups decrying civilian firearm ownership like PolySeSouvient and its spokesperson Heidi Rathjen is to use every opportunity to scream, “The sky is falling and the only way to stop it is to ban guns!”

Citing fears of high anxiety, economic meltdown, potential food shortages and panic-prone individuals, Heidi Rathjen whined, “It’s a real shame that Minister Blair did not act decisively and swiftly when he had the chance.”[i]

Presumably she meant before January 2020, when the world began its descent into the current global COVID-19 pandemic.

Rathjen launched into a tirade about a whole host of issues that simply aren’t visible in Canada.

“Assault weapons and panic-prone individuals in the midst of a pandemic are a very dangerous mix. Indeed, you do not want to introduce guns designed for mass killing in a context of generalized high anxiety, with fears of economic meltdown and potential food shortages.”

Setting aside the highly emotional but factually incorrect phrases “assault weapons” and “guns designed for mass killing”, so far as we can tell, the only people surrendering to panic and fear are Heidi Rathjen and PolySeSouvient’s followers.

The rest of the country seems to be taking the social distancing measures totally in stride with people helping friends, neighbours and total strangers wherever they can.

A search of the RCMP’s national news service[ii] shows nothing beyond the usual level of crime in Canada – certainly nothing to back up Rathjen’s claims of impending mass panic and violence.

A 79-year-old man appears to have broken through the ice near Hay River and died.[iii]

An idiot was charged with dangerous driving for speeding 85 kms over the posted speed limit in Nova Scotia.[vii]

A man threatened to kill himself with a firearm, but RCMP members were able to talk him down. A search the following day resulted in the seizure of drugs, guns and an “undisclosed amount of Canadian currency.”[viii]

Shilo Beals, a 36-year-old man, was charged with Attempted Murder and several firearms offences for shooting someone he knew at a party, appeared in Dartmouth Provincial Court and was released on bail.[ix]

The one piece of bright news is Alberta RCMP arrested the man who allegedly murdered Jacob Sansom and Maurice Cardinal on the afternoon of March 28th – a senseless double-murder apparently the result of an argument at an intersection near Glendon, AB.

But even this senseless act of brutality cannot be placed at the feet of COVID-19 panic, much to the dismay of “The Sky Is Falling” opportunists like Heidi Rathjen.

Canadians, by and large, are behaving just as they were before the pandemic struck – by saying please, thank you, excuse me and our much-joked-about national pastime, saying we’re sorry even when we’ve done nothing at all.